On the Cheap: Joanna Burns, Amanda Duncan in Hazlet

For Joanna Burns, who released her latest EP, “Music From and Inspired By,” in February, the creative process has always been about working from the ground up.

“The material I just released were songs that I had written when I was about 18 or 19 years old,” Burns says. “When I first wrote them, I wasn’t in a place where I had other musicians to play with, uncultivated completely. So that was kind of like a delayed release compared to the stuff that I’m writing now. I see everything kind of taking a forward turn, the songwriting is changing a lot … which is totally fun for me.

“My parents got me this tiny keyboard when I was little. And I started plucking out real songs. My mom would be like, ‘Aw, look, she thinks she’s playing real songs.’ So I got piano lessons and took those probably until I was about 13, even though I was still playing a lot by ear.”

Though Burns has been a musician almost as long as she’s been on two feet, her transition into live performer wouldn’t come until more than a decade later.

“I was painfully shy when I was little,” she said. “I did musical theater in high school, and one summer I did this truly horrible musical review. But there was a girl in the cast that was an incredible singer. For some reason, I got paired up with her for some kind of duet or something. I started to learn from her and got more into it and more into it and just picked up from there. I probably was 16 before I started performing in front of anybody.”

It took years of honing her musical chops for Burns to find the confidence needed to explore songwriting.

“I had never really put music and writing together until the middle of high school. I’d been playing piano since I was little and had always wanted to write, but for whatever reason, I just didn’t know how to go about it,” she said. “So one day I was like, ‘I wonder if I can write a song.’ So I wrote these ridiculous things that were terrible. And then one day, I picked up the guitar, and was like, ‘let me try to write on this.’ I found it easier to write on guitar, and I ended up writing a bunch of stuff and started writing lyrics.”

Admission is $7. The Cullen Center is at 1776 Union Ave. in Hazlet. For more from Joanna Burns, check out Jersey Alive’s cover story and the Rhythm Room this Friday.

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About Steve Bove

Sounds, sights and assorted havoc from the frontlines of the rebellion. Steve's years as an APP music/entertainment editor journalist have included talks with such punk ensigns as Mike Ness, John Waters, Gibby Haynes, Jello Biafra and Roger Miret, his loyalty rests with music, noise and chaos bred in the Garden State.

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Alex BieseAn Asbury Park Press staff writer since 2005, Alex Biese is a proud member of the local music community, both as a journalist and a musician. Along with his work for the Press, he has written for outlets including MTV.com and Film Festival today magazine.E-mail Alex

Jean MikleJean Mikle has worked at the Asbury Park Press for more than 20 years, most recently as an investigative reporter on the Projects Team. In her "other life," she’s a fan and proponent of the Asbury Park music scene, both then (Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, Southside Johnny Lyon) and now (Wave Gathering, The Stone Pony, The Saint) and all sorts of new music.E-mail Jean